Saturday, May 25, 2019

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #86 A New Feature ... Carpe Diem's Utopia


!! Open for your submissions next Sunday May 26th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I have to apologize for being late with publishing of this weekend meditation, but it has all to do with a new feature I have created "Carpe Diem's Utopia". Let me first give you an explanation about this new feature, but to do that I need to tell you first what "Utopia" was meant to be.

A Utopia is an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia. One could also say that utopia is a perfect "place" that has been designed so there are no problems.


Carpe Diem's Utopia (image credits)

Utopia focuses on equality in economics, government and justice, though by no means exclusively, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying based on ideology. According to Lyman Tower Sargent "there are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, Naturism/Nude Christians, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias [...] Utopianism, some argue, is essential for the improvement of the human condition. But if used wrongly, it becomes dangerous. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature here." Sargent argues that utopia's nature is inherently contradictory, because societies are not homogenous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. If any two desires cannot be simultaneously satisfied, true utopia cannot be attained because in utopia all desires are satisfied.

It's a dreamworld I think, but it can be of use for our haiku writing skills, because that's the task of this new feature ... creating an utopian (excellent) haiku (or tanka) by using the classical rules as you can find above in the CD Lecture 1.

A nice task from a modern view. The haiku or tanka have to have a modern theme, but has to follow the classical rules.

driving me home
her sportscar flashes along the roads
daffodils bow their head


© Chèvrefeuille

Just a small impromptu verse to show the goal for this task. Can you see the modern theme? and the classical rules?

Well ... a nice challenge I think. This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday May 26th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until June 2nd at noon (CEST). Have fun ... and ofcourse a wonderful weekend.


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